In North Carolina, Senate Races Tend to Break Late

by | Aug 12, 2014 | 2014 Elections, Carolina Strategic Analysis, Features, Polling, US Senate | 34 comments

Two weeks ago, Tillis campaign spokesman Daniel Keylin said he wasn’t worried about his candidate trailing in the polls. Why? Because, he explained, “Senate campaigns in North Carolina almost always break late.”

This isn’t just campaign spin. It’s supported by history. Most voters don’t tune in until after Labor Day, and they tend to move collectively to one candidate. To be sure, this isn’t a phenomenon unique to North Carolina. But it seems like here, voters are even more likely to tune out and not start paying attention until around Labor Day. If you look at past Senate races, you’ll find that the months before then are rarely decisive.

In 2010, Richard Burr held a small, but persistent, lead over Secretary of State Elaine Marshall. It looked like we could be in for a surprisingly close race. Then Burr went on the air, expanded his lead to double-digits, and won by 12 points.

In 2007 and 2008, Elizabeth Dole looked like a shoe-in for reelection despite middling approval ratings. All the heavyweights – Etheridge, Miller, Easley – were too timid to run. Democrats eventually went with an obscure legislator by the name of Kay Hagan.

After Hagan’s primary victory, it was clear Dole was in more trouble than she thought, and Dole took to the airwaves. Her campaign ads had an effect and it looked like Dole had already dispatched Hagan before the race even began. Then, in August, Hagan’s campaign began their assault on Dole, armed with nothing but two numbers – 92 and 93 – and two senile old men. One of the most effective political campaign advertising campaigns in NC history, Dole’s image took a beating. A last minute Hail Mary from Dole, implying that Hagan might be an atheist, backfired horribly. (Around this time six years ago, Dole still looked like the favorite. She ended up losing by over 8 points).

Throughout most of 2004, Erskine Bowles looked like he was headed to the U.S. Senate. Some polls showed him with a double-digit lead over his little-known Republican challenger, Congressman Richard Burr. But once Burr went on the air in September, the race tightened considerably and Burr won by 4 points.

The 2002 Dole/Bowles race was a rare exception where the final result did not differ significantly from initial polls.

In 1998, Lauch Faircloth was favored for a second term against prettyboy lawyer John Edwards. Edwards didn’t start leading in the polls until late September, when the Faircloth campaign realized they were in real trouble. Edwards won by 4.

Faircloth’s first Senate campaign also broke late, but this time in his favor. Terry Sanford was the overwhelming favorite before ads started pummeling him as a tax-and-spend liberal. Sanford weathered the ad barrage and maintained a small lead, and was judged the clear winner in the candidates’ only debate. But Sanford going in for heart surgery raised questions about his health and his ability to serve out a second term, and also took him off the campaign trail for an extended period. Faircloth won in an anti-incumbent year.

So what’s the takeaway? It’s this: polls before mid-August rarely reflect the final result in November. One candidate will probably break away. The undecided voters seem to move in tandem toward one candidate around September, as if they’re saying, in tandem, “OK, we’ve decided to go with you.”

Both Tillis and Hagan are crafting their message to appeal to those voters. Hagan’s message is that she’s a moderate, independent voice and a good public servant in an increasingly dysfunctional Washington, and her opponent is an extremist who is more beholden to special interests than average North Carolinians. Tillis’s message: Hagan votes 95% of the time with Obama and has a decidedly unspectacular Washington record besides. In the end, one of these messages is going to resonate more than the other. One of these messages is going to prevail, and if history is any indication, we’ll know which one it is around late September.

34 Comments

  1. Troy

    Take that one sentence fragment out of context and frame your response around it. That’s rational.

  2. Mick

    Hmmmm, Ray…..quite a indicting rant against your country.

    – why would we, as a nation, want to clear away our promises and obligations to SocSci, Medicare and Medicaid? To me it’s more honorable and decent to meet those obligations, even if it means greater taxation of all, especially those who have great wealth. Or don’t you believe in the common good?
    – inflation of currency is a global and historical reality. Deal with it.
    – “…people paying more for government than for food, clothing and shelter combined…” is sheer hyperbole.
    – Yeah, right. Martial law is in effect, right now, nationwide, as is the suspension of habeas corpus. Right.
    – Torture and summary execution were made legal and are now the law of the land? When? By whom? Where?
    – Militarization of the state and local police forces is national policy? Since when? If those PD’s have local resources and local approval to either buy or accept and use military equipment against their own citizens, it’s not national policy; it’s local lunacy.
    – Soviet-styled balloting? Falsified tallying? Widespread? Where? When?
    – “not being allowed to grow wheat on your own land for your own consumption without federal approval” shows ignorance of national ag policy and misrepresentation of facts/reality.
    – Yes, many American fighting men and women have died since the last declared war. The one truism you offered. Fact of life on the planet. We happen to be a nation of people, believing in truth, justice, self-determination, and humanitarianism, that tries to play the multiple role of provider, nurturer, mediator, and peace-keeper. But I guess some political stripes rather keep their heads in the sand, ignore it all, simply watch as other peoples suffer, and wait for some evil power to cross our borders (and refugee kids from Central America don’t qualify as an “evil power”).

    You’re clearly not happy with our country at all, Ray. You paint, and even seem to revel in, a miserable picture of the US, not even appearing to believe the US has the best of intentions if not a perfect track record. I’m disappointed in a lot of things about our country today, too. But I do believe we try our best, and we have common decency and the pursuit of happiness for all in mind. And I think many people, myself included, do a much better job in not believing and spouting exaggerations, claptrap, and falsehoods.

    • Troy

      Mick, I couldn’t agree more.

  3. Ray

    Hey PPPeeps, thanks and congrats for doing the first poll that fully represents the 27% Non-Demopublican share of the electorate. You got the D and R shares right too. 42, 31, 27.

  4. Mick

    You honestly think that a Dem voter is more likely than a GOP voter to swing over from their party’s nominee to Haugh? Libertarians and conservatives are on exactly the same page concerning what they desire for government’s role in society, i.e., minimizing it, starving it, or ending it.

    • Rat

      The demopublican party’s two wings are closer to each other than either is to us Libertarians. More and more federal dollars have been spent every consecutive year since 1966, constantly increasing for 48 straight years now, no matter which aisle of the Incumbent Party controlled which branch. All the two wings argue about is which direction the government should grow in next and how fast.

      I surmise you also want more of the Welfare-Warfare State. You have two highly qualified choices to select between. Each of them stands able and eager to give you more of it than even you can handle.

      As for being too bothered to click a link to videos by the candidate himself, Libertarian Sean Haugh speaking directly into the camera for several minutes each about his various issue positions, poor you, I hope your click muscles Get Well Soon, dudes!

      • Ray

        Proofread everything but my name. :-}

      • Troy

        “The demopublican party’s two wings are closer to each other than either is to us Libertarians. More and more federal dollars have been spent every consecutive year since 1966…”

        Perhaps you’d like to tell us how, precisely, you can cut spending all the while, costs go up, population goes up, and yes, the number of services have gone up. I know, get rid of the population and the services, right? Along with the minimum wage, and what else is it Libertarians want to trim out of governmental budgets and privatize; ah yes, police and fire protection, road construction and maintenance, education. And let’s not forget, changing the entire body of law and laws we have insofar as what constitutes crime and criminal activity. Likewise, everything has a price. So you can buy your way out of prison, if that is what the victim agrees to. I guess the likes of Justin Bieber could just open an escrow account with the courts and go cavorting about to his little heart’s content terrorizing the neighborhood, since he has money to burn under your parties’ idealized system of jurisprudence. Justice has a price tag.

        As far as things like homicide, well, no one could commit a crime so heinous, so vile, so shocking to the conscience that it would justify, warrant, or be worthy of the death penalty. Since Libertarians would abolish it. No government retribution for them, oh no.

        Libertarians would run this nation into the ground faster than Reagan tax reform, supply side economics, or Paul Ryan’s slant on fiscal responsibility. Oh, and lets add in laissez faire economics that the economic system is a self leveling or correcting system. They want to shrink government. Well, in 1776 the population of the 13 original colonies was 2.5 million people. Today, with 50 states, the population is over 315 million. The population in 1787 when the Constitution was ratified was 3.5 million. And you’re going to try and govern 315+ million people in a manner embraced by 3.5 million?

        Plato said, “only the dead have seen the end of war.” Do I like it? No, actually I don’t. Does it seem to be the new normal, the world perpetually in conflict? It does. Burying your head in the sand however certainly won’t make it go away. In fact, it would probably invite those things you hold most contemptable; invasion, occupation, the UN. Not serving your country when called upon, and your party clamors on the second amendment specifically, is what being a member of the militia is about. All males of a certain age at that point in time were considered to be members of that militia. Because let me tell you this. When the folks in the foreign uniforms show up, it’s too late. Isolationist policies don’t work.

        So as you can see, my clicking muscles are just fine. I can go on, but I think Mr. Mills would probably bore with me deriding the Libertarian platform plank by plank.

        Admit it or not however, Mick is correct. Libertarians are closer to Conservative Republicans and Tea Partiers than they care to admit or acknowledge. In a world of extremist lunacy and action, people hardly need that as the prevailing form of governance.

        • Ray

          “Libertarians would run this nation into the ground…”
          As opposed to the demopublicans, who have merely given us $17T in official debt; and $50-200T estimated to clear away all entitlement obligations; and a dollar that has lost 96% of its purchasing power in the century since the Fed was chartered; and people paying more for government than for food, clothing and shelter combined; and the suspension of Habeas Corpus; and the imposition of martial law (aka military tribunals); and the legalization of torture; and the legalization of summary execution; and the militarization of police; and Soviet-style ballots to facilitate openly falsified vote tallies; and not being allowed to grow wheat on your own land for your own consumption without federal approval; and troops in a hundred different countries with 100K of them dying since the end of the last declared War? Interesting prediction but I don’t see any kind of argument for it based on actual Libertarian positions.

  5. Mick

    Ray, to talked me into it. I am all for Haugh being part of any debates and any news coverage. Why? Because, as figure it, any votes going his way are fewer votes going to Tillis. LIbertarian ideology is much closer to arch-conservative than it is to progressive ideology.

    As you’ve demonstrated and as I mentioned earlier, thought of libertarian bent always simplistically reduce THE issue to liberty vs. oppression. They just can’t grasp any other notion. Sorry, but IMO, it’s a small jump from obsessing over and championing one’s personal liberties to refusing or shirking one’s civic obligations (e.g., serving in the armed forces when needed, paying one’s taxes for the benefit of having the rule of law and a governance structure, serving on juries, obeying ordinances for keeping civil order and common welfare) or to begin thinking one needs more freedoms than others do.

    • Ray

      “LIbertarian ideology is much closer to arch-conservative than it is to progressive ideology.” Which candidate advocates ending the drug war? Ending the foreign wars? Ending corporate welfare? Repealing the Patriot Act? Ending random roadblocks? Opening the borders? Demilitarizing the police?

  6. Troy

    “…Sean Haugh wants the government small enough to fit inside the Constitution.”

    Ray: What do you mean by that statement, or better yet, what does Haugh mean? What is the locus of ‘fitting’ inside the Constitution? How, pray tell, will this be done without damaging the country, the economy, and the people? Please, show us how Haugh’s stated policies and stance will positively impact the nation in a more positive way and establish stability back in the middle class, help the lower classes better their condition, and throttle back the upper class to keep them from establishing this ruling monetary elite.

    Yes, I’m being serious. Yes, I’m looking for specifics, not that broad sweeping hyperbole that sounds good but details nothing.

    • Mick

      Troy:
      You’ve voiced my own frustration with libertarian mouthings. “Just strip it all down to following the Constitution, strictly by-the-word, and minimize government in all quarters” they will opine, not realizing how naïve and impossible that is. What they in effect are saying is “Ignore or erase 235 years of judicial interpretation of that document, plus that many years of federal, state and local law-making.”
      And, of course, strict interpretation can be one of those “be careful what you ask for” sort of things, as even their adored 2nd amendment might not fare well if based on the need for domestic regulated militias.
      Then there is their focus (obsession) on personal freedom, ignoring the facts that, relative to other nations, the US has more of it than any, that offering such freedoms FOR ALL may require limiting them for some, and that maintaining freedom comes with the responsibility of maintaining security and order that only government and its laws can provide or at very least frame.
      Sorry if this gets in the way of Ray’s response.

      • Troy

        Nah, Mick. I don’t think it will get in the way. I’m just looking for answers; specific answers. And honestly, I’m interested in seeing what they’ll be.

        I concur with your analysis however. I find the Constitution an amazing document and the men that wrote it surprisingly insightful. To draft a document specific enough and yet generalized and broad enough that it works across generations, with a little tweaking from time to time.

        What these folks seem to forget is, there were no rights contained therein with the original Constitution. It took a promise and ratification of the Consititution.

        Can’t you just imagine the passage of such a document today with the ‘promise’ of immediate amendment once it was passed?

    • Ray

      If it’s too broad, tell the media to include him in the debates so he can tell you more. I’m not his spokesman, I speak from my personal knowledge of his politics. One big specific is to bring all the troops home. Sean Haugh knows that the War-declaring power belongs to the Congress and that Congress has not exercised that power since 1942.

      His videos speak quite specifically about many issues, more specifically and more issues than Kay and Thom have done yet.
      http://www.seanhaugh.com/issues

      Libertarians oughtn’t need to prove their agenda is perfect, just that it’s better than demopublicans. Essentially the issue is liberty vs. tyranny. Are you a competent adult who should be in charge of his own economic and personal decisions, and who should be left alone until evidence arises that you have damaged someone else’s person or person? Only Libertarians think yes.

      • Troy

        Frankly, that was the answer that I expected. Referrals to videos rather than explanations. And it doesn’t even begin to address my initial question; what did you mean by quoting Haugh by saying what you did? Yes, it’s overly broad. Overly general and overly vague. And while Mr. Haugh speaks on issues that you see as being the front of the debate, the other candidates, the ones leading in the polls, see other issues as being pivotal to the people.

        So I’ll ask you again. What is meant by the statement about government being within the Constitution? You made that specific statement, I’m asking you to explain it.

        1941 actually. But it was December.

        However, in expectation of the answer to my inquiries, I meandered on over to the LPNC site and took a look around. What I found was…revealing. But rather than pontificate myself, I’ll include the link to the party platform.

        http://www.lpnc.org/our-principles_platform-of-the-libertarian-party-of-north-carolina

        I’m not asking for proof perfect of their agenda. I’m asking for proof, rather than idealized generalizations, that it’s better than what we have. Ours is an imperfect system, but for all of it’s imperfections, its the best I’ve seen.

        So now you have a second bite at the apple.

  7. Mick

    Know what, Tom? I’ll agree with you. Every vote on ACA was critical, although an individual senator/voter is no more “powerful” than any other. And I hope she is “judged” by her vote for ACA, by not only the 400,000-odd NCers who enrolled, but by their families and friends. And even by more folks like me, who are insured via other means, but still feel good that people with a healthcare need are now getting it, and that my premiums will be less affected by so many uninsured using ER’s instead of having a doctor and health insurance.

    This above all said, Hagan has no power over, or responsibility for, some zillion other things this POTUS is blamed for by his haters.

  8. Tom

    Mick – When Hagan voted for the Affordable Care Act, I would argue that she had a LARGE amount of power since the Act got 60 Yes votes, or just enough to provide a fillibuster-proof majority. She had power on that narrow vote, used it, and should be judged for it.

  9. Mick

    Really, Jimmy? Bringing up Nazism and Hitler as an analogy on this topic/thread about Tillis and Hagan? Get some counseling, friend.
    BTW, in the shrink’s waiting room, you might want to watch for a FOX News report about a senator overruling presidential policy/action. Then let us all know the details, OK?

  10. Mick

    Jimmy Not only do you need PoliSci lessons, you need to sharpen your reading skills. I repeat: a single junior senator bears no power over, or responsibility for, what the POTUS does or has done.

    • Jimmy Rouse

      Sounds like the excuses used by the Nazis at the Nuremberg Trials. “I was not responsible for what Hitler was doing. I was only a Junior Senator.”

      LOL

  11. Mick

    Jimmy Rouse: A political science lesson seems in order. Tillis is one of the 2 most politically and legislatively powerful leaders in the state. Hagan is a junior, first-term senator among 50 US senators. Tillis has had major influence on the state budget and all state laws/acts since 2010. Hagan still must build upon her seniority (via re-election) and her legislative record in the Congress, and must be elected Senate Majority Leader before she has similar powers in that body. Tillis bears great individual responsibility for most everything the state government has advanced over the last 3.5 years. Hagan bears no power over or responsibility for what the POTUS does or has done. Got it?

    • Jimmy Rouse

      I see. So a US Senator really has little power. That is a good lesson to learn. Wonder why people go to all the bother and expense over who represents us in the Senate.

  12. Jimmy Rouse

    If Tillis is responsible for all the damage by the GOP General Assembly then by rights Hagan should be responsible for all the damage done by the Obama administration.

    Who has caused the greater damage?

    • Bebe

      Tillis.

    • Ray

      You’ve convinced me – let’s not support either of them. The party that legalized torture and the party that legalized summary execution are BOTH responsible for WAY more damage than we voters should want to take credit for. Let’s get behind Libertarian Sean Haugh instead, for MORE FREEDOM, LESS GOVERNMENT. End the Welfare-Warfare State. Get the demopublicans out of your wallet AND out of your home, as much and as fast as possible.

  13. Ray

    “Hagan’s message [that] her opponent is an extremist”

    Like pollsters, she has trouble counting higher than two. But until she shuts down Youtube, I know about He Who Is Not to Be Named, and how he would bring the troops home unlike her, and repeal the Patriot Act unlike her, and end drone warfare unlike her, and abolish govt subsidies of corporations unlike her.

  14. Mick

    I’ll give credit where and when it’s due, John. It seems 98 percent of the time, I’m criticizing your approach, analysis or writing.

    This time, I’ll throw you a bouquet for not being overwhelmingly partisan and churlish, and for actually writing “Hagan’s message is that she’s a moderate, independent voice and a good public servant in an increasingly dysfunctional Washington, and her opponent is an extremist who is more beholden to special interest than average North Carolinians.”

    In my view, that accurately sums up what Hagan and Tillis are. So, nice job.

    • Jimmy Rouse

      It seems to me that the left is completely satisfied with Kay’s leftism but the right is not satisfied with Tillis’ rightism.

  15. Ray

    Skewed poll samples, garbage out. Haven’t seen one yet that fully represents the 27% Unaffiliated share of the NC electorate.

    Kay Haggard: not Left enough to stop war. Thom Thumb: not Right enough to stop deficits. Libertarian Sean Haugh: what NC voters want but don’t know it.

    • Thomas Ricks

      Rand Gold Owl. Libertarians have the SUPER SUPER SECRET knowledge of the us constitution that NO ONE ELSE HAS. Join the libertarian party and gain an instinctive understanding of Gold! Know science better than the scientists!

      Somalia is a great idea! WOOHOO! Who needs roads?! Education should be for the elite and made private.

      Vote libertarian. Vote stupid.

      • Ray

        Lucky you have two pro-war pro-deficit choices to pick between.

        • Thomas Ricks

          I will believe a libertarian really cares about the deficit when they vote democrat. Which is to say, never. Democrats work on reducing the deficit. Libertarians work on destroying the government.

          • Ray

            $7T rise in national debt in the last 6 years on the demopublicans’ watch. If they worked on reducing it, they are failures. Sean Haugh wants the government small enough to fit inside the Constitution. You government supremacists just reflexively call any curbing of your power destructive.

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